ABSTRACT

In Turkey where agriculture is a major industry, cystic echinococcosis is a serious public health problem which also has a significant impact on the country’s economy. In this case, echinococcosis seroprevalence among veterinary surgeons was tested using the enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect hemagglutination (IHA) methods and the samples tested positive were subjected to a further verification test using the western blot (WB) method. While sera from 2 out of 93 veterinary surgeons (2.15%) were found to be positive for Echinococcus-IgG antibody using the ELISA method, the optic density values of the two sera were found to be very close to the limits. All of the sera were found to be seronegative for Echinococcus-IgG antibody using the IHA method. Further verification using the WB method was used for confirmation of the 2 (2.15%) sera positive with ELISA, one of the sera tested positive for IgG and the other was at the limit.

Keywords: Cystıc echinococcosis, veterinary surgeon, ELISA, IHA, seroprevalance